Liquid manure is a valuable source of nutrients for agricultural crops. Other nutrient streams, typically liquid or liquid-solid dispersion, may include effluent from food processing plants, municipal bio-solids from sewage treatment plants, or commercially-available liquid fertilizers.
In the case of prior art implements and methods of applying liquid manure to tracts of land, a dragline system provides an economical method for delivering the slurry.
One manner of delivery to a crop is to pump the slurry, typically a liquid-solid dispersion, from a lagoon or storage tank to the field by a piping system, where it is delivered to an application implement via a flexible dragline. In the field a flexible dragline is coupled to an application implement, and the implement is pulled across the field by a tractor.
The implement may spread the slurry in a broadcast manner on the surface of the soil, may precision apply the slurry in bands located in the cultivation path of the implement or rows of live crop; or alternatively may blend or bury the material in the soil.
The tractor, which tows the application implement, due to flexibility of the dragline, can follow a serpentine path in the field to give uniform coverage of the land while being operatively connected to the flexible dragline.
Typically, with respect to prior art devices which are used in this manner and which have capability of being operatively coupled to a flexible dragline, on the towed application implement a swing pipe (invariably a horizontal conduit extending rearwardly of the towed implement) is provided; one end of which is pivotally connected to the implement ; the other connects to the dragline, which is in turn operatively connected to the liquid-solid dispersion distribution system. The swing pipe transmits the forces required to pull the dragline, conduct the slurry to the implement for delivery to the soil, and provides clearance with the structure of the implement when the tractor makes turns in the field.
A number of soil tillage or soil aeration devices, typically towed by a tractor or other commercial farming vehicle, are currently on the market and are commercially available, which simultaneously permit such tillage or aeration device to further at the same time as the soil is being tilled or aerated supply a liquid or liquid-solid dispersion, such as liquid fertilizer or liquid manure, to the soil, while being coupled to the dragline.
Advantageously, such modified tillage/aeration devices have the advantage to farmers in that they permit a farmer avoiding having to fertilize the soil in a separate operation than the tillage/aeration operation, and thus avoid the attendant additional expense to farmers in gas/diesel of such additional operations, as well as the additional time and manpower required to conduct separate operations.
Such implements, typically for the supply of liquid manure, consist of a typical tillage or aeration device adapted to be towed by a tractor having a plurality of gangs of disks, harrows, or spiked rollers to either till, plough, or aerate, respectively, the soil, further having a supply conduit and a plurality of lesser diameter flexible tubes which permit liquid manure to be supplied to the device and thereafter to the soil, respectively. The application by the device of the liquid manure to the soil occurs typically immediately after the soil has been tilled or ploughed, but sometimes occurs immediately in advance of a gang of harrows, knife members, or spiked rollers, which thereafter proceed to mix the manure into the soil.
A generally horizontal elongated conduit extends rearwardly of the device, and is adapted at a distal end thereof to be coupled to a source of liquid manure, which may be contained in a large tank which is further towed by the tractor rearwardly of the tillage/aeration device, or alternatively may be coupled by way of a lengthy flexible hose (a “drag hose”) to a stationary tank or lagoon, to permit supply of liquid manure to the device.
One such commercially-available device is a soil tillage and liquid manure applicator sold by Balzer Inc, of Mountain Lake, Minn.
Another device is an AERWAY™ soil aerating and manure applicator device manufactured by the applicant herein, namely Holland Equipment Limited of Norwich, Ontario, Canada.
These devices each possess an elongate, substantially horizontal, rearwardly extending conduit to supply liquid manure to the device, and thereafter to the soil. Such horizontal conduit is pivotally coupled to a vertically-extending conduit, which extends upwardly therefrom at approximately a 90° angle, and further swivels so as to permit the horizontal conduit to pivot in a substantially horizontal plane about a vertical axis passing through such vertically-extending conduit.
Pivoting of the horizontal supply conduit in a horizontal plane is useful as it avoids having to disconnect and connect the supply conduit to the source of liquid manure each time the farmer reverses direction when towing the tillage device around tracts of land. Alternatively, when various tanks containing liquid manure are also towed by the tractor and serve as a mobile supply of liquid manure, pivotable movement of the supply conduit is advantageous as it permits adaption to various tanks which may have their supply connections located in different positions, thereby permitting a single aeration/tillage device to be compatible with and coupleable to various tanks having different geometries.
Importantly, disadvantages of the prior art configuration are that additional equipment such as a flow meter and/or shut-off valve, when as in the prior art such are mounted on the horizontal conduit (which is itself mounted on the frame of the implement), are subject to forces imposed by the drag line on the horizontal conduit, and thence to the vertically-extending conduit, which means such additional equipment must typically be made more robust than otherwise would be the case in order to avoid bending, breakage, or deformation leading to leakage or inoperability of such optional equipment.
Prior art devices having vertically-extending conduits directly mounted to the frame and which swivel present challenges in that the vertical conduit must transmit force loads and maintain a secure seal for the liquid-solid dispersions. Such swivel construction has disadvantages in the form of substantial hardware costs, potential leaks, and difficulty of maintenance.
In addition, some vertically-extending conduits which are caused to rotate due to the pivoting of the horizontal supply conduit to which they are attached, tend to wrap the flexible delivery tubes to which they are attached, around them when the horizontal supply conduit is caused to pivot. The foregoing occurrence tends to limit the extent to which the horizontal conduit may be pivoted. Alternatively, or in addition, when a vertically-extending conduit is provided that swivels, and the horizontal supply conduit is pivoted such may, particularly where large (wide) implements are used and accordingly there are many flexible supply tubes to supply liquid manure across the swath of the device, place kinks in some of the flexible tubes which supply liquid manure to the soil, and/or cause uneven stretching or wear in some of the flexible tubes, thereby limiting the effectiveness of these devices.
Accordingly, a real need exists for an apparatus for applying liquid-solid dispersions to soil, having a horizontal supply conduit which pivots in a horizontal plane to provide the above advantages, but which at the same time is simple and cost effective to manufacture and maintains good sealing and in addition overcomes certain of the disadvantages of the prior art such as placing of additional stresses on measuring and valving equipment which may be included.